SigmaWay Blog

The investment banks are now looking at how they can use big data to do what they do better, faster and more efficiently. Senior executives at the banks want to enhance how they use data to raise profitability, map out markets and company-wide exposures, and ultimately win more deals. Big data is also a fundamental element of risk-profiling for the banks, enabling data analysts to immediately assess the impact of the escalation in geopolitical risk on portfolios and their exposure to specific markets and asset classes. Specifically, banks have now built systems that will map out market-shaping past events in order to identify future patterns. There lies the requirement of big data talent!

The banks are actively recruiting big data and analytics specialists to fill two main, but significantly different roles: big data engineers and data scientists. Data Scientists are responsible for bridging the gap between data analytics and business decision-making, capable of translating complex data into key strategy insight, while Data Engineers typically come from a strong IT development or coding background and are responsible for designing data platforms and applications. The competition between banks and fund managers to hire big data specialists is heating up. Data scientists are expected to have sharp technical and quantitative skills. They are in highest demand and this is where the biggest skill shortage exists.

To read more, visit the link given below:

http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Investment-banks-recruit-for-the-rise-of-big-data-analytics

Some 2 billion people continue to live on less than $2 a day! Millions of women and girls around the world lack basic human rights. A slew of initiatives address these and other intractable social issues, yet often, even the most successful ones only address a fraction of the problem. The good news is that a number of cutting-edge leaders and organizations are shifting their focus to ask: "How can we help to have impact at a scale that actually solves the problem?" And they are finding that technology, particularly information tech, offers answers. According to Ray Kurzweil, Google’s director of engineering and a renowned expert on artificial intelligence, "Once any domain, discipline, technology, or industry becomes information-enabled and powered by information flows, its price/performance begins doubling approximately annually." This phenomenon opens up the potential for exponential growth in reach and impact.

Here are six ways that information technology is breaking through scale barriers:

·      Empowering with information.

·         Teaching and engaging.

·         Making matches.

·         Crowdsourcing hotspots.

·         Reaching the under-served.

·         Raise cash for good.

Abe Grindle, famous author, speaks about the ways technology is breaking the barriers to social change. To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3043761/techsocial/6-ways-technology-is-breaking-barriers-to-social-change

Cricket and Analytics are hot topics today. With the help of technology Analytics, the interest quotient of cricket has gone up exponentially. High definition telecasts, data visualisation have really made cricket exciting to watch nowadays. Vijay Sethi, VP and CIO at Hero MotoCorp Ltd, speaks about how he sees his favourite game today that comes with a generous dose of analytics. To read more, visit the following link:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/analytics-in-cricket-is-a-technological-marvel-hero-motocorp-cio-vijay-sethi/536201-3.html

A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment in which an organization provides and manages some resources in-house and has others provided externally. For example, an organization might use a public cloud service, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for archived data but continue to maintain in-house storage for operational customer data. The hybrid approach allows a business to take advantage of the scalability and cost-effectiveness that a public cloud computing environment offers without exposing mission-critical applications and data to third-party vulnerabilities. This type of hybrid cloud is also referred to as hybrid IT. The hybrid cloud has the potential to transform enterprise IT completely and shift the cost/benefit emphasis from cost to benefit.

Matt Watts, Netapp, speaks about how hybrid cloud can bring this transformation. To know more, please visit:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/netapp/2015/03/18/hybrid-cloud-cost-benefit/

Google Analytics is one of the best tools one can use for the purpose of analyzing the audience. With the right insights, one can modify the approach, anticipate customer needs, and create a superior user experience. It is also possible to measure a tremendous diversity of data on your web users, and using that data, you’ll be able to make meaningful change to your branding and marketing strategies. The acquisition insights and behavioural insights will help you explore more details and trend understanding. This information is especially useful in determining which of your marketing strategies is the most effective, but it’s also useful for determining what types of people are visiting your site and why. For example, if you find that the majority of your users are finding your site through content you’ve syndicated on social media, you could double your content writing and syndication efforts to attract an even greater number of users.

To read more, please visit the following link:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/03/19/how-to-analyze-your-audience-in-google-analytics/

The cloud services leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been challenged by the big daddy Google by announcing new storage partnerships with a number of companies for data backup (Veritas Technologies Corp./Symantec Corp.), on-premises appliances for data de-duplication (NetApp), encryption and compression (Iron Mountain Inc.), and offline disk storage and Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) solutions (Geminare Inc.). Google offers an Online Cloud Import service that can be used to migrate petabyte-scale data from other online storage services to Google Cloud Storage, the company said in a white paper about Nearline Storage.Nearline will enable users to easily back up and store limitless amounts of data at a very low cost and access it at any time in a matter of seconds, which has been positioned against the Amazon Glacier storage service.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2015/03/16/google-nearline-storage-challenges-aws.aspx

Analytics has now become an integral part of cricket. Before the match begins, there is a series of analysis about the pitch, weather conditions, weather predictions, history of two teams against each other, history of the teams on the particular ground, in the particular country, among others . Similarly, each player of the teams gets analyzed in great details, in terms of his records, his performance against the opponent, on the pitch, his strengths and weaknesses. Each player is also analyzed as a fielder in terms of the history of his catches taken or dropped. Strategies of captain get predicted and its possible impacts are discussed. The list is just endless. Cricket is no longer only the game to be played on the ground. Much of it happens off the ground, using analytical tools.

Satish Pendse, president of Highbar Technologies Ltd, an HCC group company, explains how he sees cricket today with technology impacting the viewing experience. To know more, click on the link below

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cricketnext/real-cricket-action-happens-off-the-ground-with-analytics-highbar-tech-cio-satish-pendse/533130-78.html 

Pure tag management software/solution has become omnipresent. Every company wants to own one. But it is a feature and not a product segment. So, the future of "tags" is shifting to data management. Most TMS providers are now engaging in unification platforms, by which all the data collected from various channels and devices can connect and interact. These can be utilized by marketers so as to reduce spending, and increase marketing efficiencies. The future of tag management is digital marketing. It gives marketer agility and ownership of their data. To know more about tag management and its benefits and the future challenges it faces, read the article by Contributor Hollis Thomases (veteran of the interactive marketing world) at: http://marketingland.com/future-tag-management-102355

vRad (Virtual Radiologic) released its latest Radiology Patient Care Indices, which will be available for free and unrestricted use.  It is the U.S.A.'s largest telemedicine company and radiology practice. It enables hospitals, health systems and radiology departments to use normalized data for comparing their own usage of CT imaging in the Emergency Department with similar organizations across the U.S. However, using analytics to improve measuring, benchmarking and proving overall healthcare value is not simple. One must know what to measure, how to measure it, and what benchmark goals to opt and a sound knowledge of radiology analytics. Read more at: http://www.vision-systems.com/marketwired/2014/10/14/vrad-continues-empowering-radiology-with-access-to-big-data-analytics-and-insights.html

The National Hockey League (NHL) is focusing on making a substantial investment in analytics to evaluate players' performance. Other than ticket pricing, analytics can be applied in other revenue stream like sponsorship investments by corporate partners. Using analytics in sports sponsorship provides answers to sponsors like why they are getting value by working with a sports organization. It also helps to state issues when a team or athlete is unsuccessful in competition. Thus, a wealth of new data is available to sports organizations. To know more, go through the article by Adam Grossman, Ben Shields, Irving Rein (authors of The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High-Performance Industry) at: http://blog.oup.com/2014/10/advancement-sports-analytics-business/

According to John Sculley (entrepreneur and the former CEO of Pepsi-Cola and Apple) a drastic change is taking place in marketing with the expansion of incredible new technologies like big data, cloud computing and numerous miniature sensors as well as mobile devices, making customers smarter. Nowadays customers value each other's opinion more than the producers'. With the beginning of a big-data marketing era, the prospects for entrepreneurs to disrupt and build companies have improved because technology costs have reduced. Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238363

Auto Trader is an automotive classified website located in the United Kingdom, owned by Trader Media Group. The Auto Trader Group is conveying market insights to motor vehicle dealers who advertise on its website at a high speed with the help of Hadoop and other analytics software. The analytics project, called Audience Hub, has helped transform the website. The company is creating a web portal from which their customers may access data on consumers' interaction with their vehicle listings. To know more, go through the article by CLINT BOULTON (Staff Reporter for CIO Journal) at: http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/10/14/how-autotrader-put-analytics-in-the-drivers-seat/

Finding balance between data size and analytical modeling needs can be a problematic process in big data analytics. But it is essential for the success of big data analytics projects. The size of big data sources at social networking companies can obstruct analytics efforts. So, restraining the opportunity of an analysis by using data sampling techniques can be helpful. On the other hand, there are many businesses that lack the data needed to answer key business questions. For those organizations, development of effective analytical models can only take place after new data types are acquired and their analytics infrastructure is built. To know more, go through the article by Ed Burns (site editor of SearchBusinessAnalytics) at: http://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/feature/Balance-required-between-big-data-volume-analytics-needs

The KYC platform launched by eClerx enables both seller and buyer clients to establish and conduct KYC processes. Reduction of regulatory risk and compliance across multiple jurisdictions is ensured under high level of supervision. Clients using eClerx's KYC offering are able to extra proficiently involve in business relationships and decrease the possibility of illegal activities such as money laundering. Organizations, not properly managing their KYC, face risk and reputation. Therefore KYC has come into the regulatory forefront and is an indispensable component of enterprise risk. Read more at: http://www.hedgeweek.com/2014/10/13/211289/eclerx-launches-know-your-customer-solution

According to David Bannister (editor at Banking Technology magazine), there has been a change in retail banking in the UK in recent years. A steady change has been noticed in the type of organizations that provide banking services and the way that both these new and incumbent providers transact with customers. However, change may be driven by the non-financial organizations as well. In many cases, these organizations are well known consumer brands with collections of customer loyalty. One such category is UK supermarkets which enjoy positive perceptions among their customers, thus suggesting that they are providing better customer satisfaction than banks. So, banks must retain focus on improving customer sentiment and make sure that people do not switch. Read more at: http://www.bankingtech.com/248682/the-rise-of-the-challenger-banks/

A lot is at stake in the stock market because average stock valuations are in high-normal range. Most analysts agree that if the average P/E Ratio of S&P 500 is anything greater than 20, it means stocks are in a rather high-priced region. There are several factors however that might create problems. To know more go through the article by Julian Close (business writer, PRA International and the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping) at: http://www.marketintelligencecenter.com/articles/612420

In today's world, agriculture is not enough for farmers to sustain and to move on to the next level. Business-oriented agriculture should be encouraged. Without proper market intelligence, profit making is impractical. Farmers are not aware of the market demand and what consumers want. So, farmers and traders should work together to promote products required in the market and fix prices using technology in farming. A programme focusing on this issue was organized by National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation, Coimbatore, and Department of Horticulture, Madurai, under the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture. They are trying to identify the horticultural needs of farmers and bring out solutions. Read more at: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/market-intelligence-is-crucial-for-farmers/article6454553.ece

Today's small businesses are setting their focus on their own unique products and services rather than the best piece of real estate for showcasing. They now cater to local markets and potential customers and are shifting their focus towards local SEO. There are many valid reasons for this. Customers simply choose to spend their hard earned money locally as it gives a feeling of economic stability. To know more about why and how to optimize a small business presence with localized SEO efforts, read the article by David Goehst (Entrepreneur, Expert Blogger, and Search Engine Pro) at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-goehst/how-local-seo-speeds-up-small-business-growth_b_5830646.html

According to Bjorn Cumps (digital banking professor and director of the Centre for Financial Services at Vlerick Business School), retail banks would find it very challenging to increase net bank income because of the recent financial crisis. So, the only way these banks can look for possible future growth is via technology. Retail banks have been testing with new technology like mobile banking apps, prepaid cards, QR-code based payments, digital advisors, social media analytics tools and location-based services etc. The true winners in retail banking will not be the ones who approve new technology but is the one with new financial ecosystem, including tech companies, energy companies, retailers, real estate agents, notaries, lawyers and many other service providers, offering integrated services that create genuine customer value. Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/oct/07/retail-banks-growth-hopes-technology-value-customer-apple-pay

The first milestone in cloud computing history was marked by the arrival of Salesforce.com in 1999, which is the pioneer of the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a simple website. . The next development was Amazon Web Services in 2002, started providing a suite of cloud-based services including storage, computation and even human intelligence through the Amazon Mechanical Turk.In 2009, as Web 2.0 hit its stride, Google and others started to offer browser-based enterprise applications, though services such as Google Apps. According to Dan Germain, chief technology officer of Cobweb Solutions, “The most important contribution to cloud computing has been the emergence of "killer apps" from leading technology giants such as Microsoft and Google. When these companies deliver services in a way that is reliable and easy to consume, the knock-on effect to the industry as a whole is a wider general acceptance of online services.” To know more about the history of cloud, go to: http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/A-history-of-cloud-computing